'New' badge on product cards: +11.7% conversion rate (not significant)
Test run byClean CommitCRO agency
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsAdding a 'New' badge to recently added products raised conversion rate by 11.7% and orders by 9.9%, but the result was not statistically significant.
Clean Commit ran this test for an anonymized Shopify store and published it in its A/B test library.
We count it as inconclusive: average order value fell and most of the gain came from a small desktop sample.
- Conversion rate: +11.7%, and orders: +9.9%. Positive but not significant.
- Revenue per visitor: +4.1% only, because average order value fell 6.8%.
- Click-through rate: +1.8%, a small move on the test's main metric. Bounce rate fell 7.2%.
- Desktop conversion rose 40.4%, but on just 2,037 desktop visitors, so that figure is unreliable.
The change
The variant shows a 'New' badge on recently added product cards.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
Product cards showed no label for new products.
Variant
Recently added products got a 'New' badge on product cards everywhere they appeared: collection pages, featured sections and search results.
Why it likely came out this way
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- A newness label gives returning shoppers a reason to look at products they haven't seen.
- New items may be cheaper or smaller add-ons, which could explain the lower order value.
- The click lift was small, so the badge may not have changed browsing much; the sales gain may be partly noise.
Caveats: The test ran 17 days on 8,090 visitors and was not significant; the agency called it a positive signal. Most of the gain came from 2,037 desktop visitors, and average order value fell.
Who ran it
Clean Commit ran this test for a Shopify store (anonymized) and published the results (Clean Commit A/B test library). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on Clean Commit →
How to run this test on your store
- Hypothesis
- If we label recently added products as 'New' on product cards, then more shoppers will click and buy because newness draws attention.
- Primary metric
- Conversion rate
- Guardrails
- Average order value
- Revenue per visitor
- Click-through rate from listings
- Who should test it
- Stores that add products often and have many repeat visitors. If you rarely launch new products, or only a handful carry the badge, the effect will be hard to see.
Questions
Do 'New' badges increase sales?
In this test conversion rate rose 11.7%, but the result was not significant and order value fell.
It is a signal worth retesting, not proof.
Where should 'New' badges appear?
This test showed them on every product card site-wide, including collections, featured sections and search.
Consistent placement makes the label easy to learn.
Why watch average order value with badge tests?
Badges shift which products people choose. Here order value fell 6.8%, which cut the revenue gain to 4.1%.
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